"SIMI VALLEY, Calif. -- NASA has agreed to an 'excessive and unnecessarily costly cleanup' of a former rocket test facility near Los Angeles that was the site of a partial nuclear meltdown in 1959, the space agency's watchdog said Thursday."

"An audit by NASA's inspector general questioned whether it was the best use of limited funds and urged the agency to re-examine its cleanup plans for the Santa Susana Field Laboratory, where the federal government and other parties conducted nuclear research and tested rocket engines for four decades.

Several of the site's former users, including NASA, are required by law to remove contaminated groundwater and soil from the site by 2017."